The Hop (14 page)

“LET'S WALK THROUGH the ecology exhibit,” Taylor said as they entered the hotel atrium. “I'll pick up some stuff for my grandmother.”

The huge banners with the toad logo rippled slowly. The boy was gazing at them in the way that Taylor sometimes saw her grandmother gazing at a perfect ruffled poppy or an amazing sky.

“I could use a nap,” her dad said.

Her mother sighed. “I'm tired too, honey. Let's look later. Maybe before the closing banquet tonight.”

“But this ends for good in a couple of hours.” Taylor pointed to a sign.

“Oh,” Taylor's mother said. “I didn't realize they'd be taking things down today. We'd better look while we can, I guess.”

Her parents drifted off to a model of a rain forest.

“Where's your family?” Taylor asked Tad.

His eyes scanned the huge atrium. “Over there,” he said, pointing to the amphibian exhibit.

“That's where I found out my toad was in the wrong habitat. He's
Bufo americanus
. I don't know where he came from or how he got here, but I need to take him home.”

“Don't worry,” Tad said. “He's around.”

Why was he so sure?

Taylor caught a glimpse of herself reflected in a huge poster of the large-billed reed warbler. She'd forgotten all about her Queen of the Hop regalia. She probably looked kind of silly. She could take off the sash and crown, but then what would she do with them? But her dance shoes were setting her feet on fire every time she moved. She stepped out of them and felt much better. Carrying them, she followed Tad down the row of large photographs.

A lady was explaining, “These are all creatures that environmentalists thought had died out long ago, but have been rediscovered. It's very exciting to know there are a few still with us. But if we're not careful with the environment, they'll certainly be wiped out forever.”

“Holy tadpoles, look at that,” Tad said, leading the way to a photograph of a brown fish about the size of two men.

“‘Coelacanth,'” Taylor read. It was pronounced
see
-luh-canth, according to the sign. The fish was thought to have been extinct for more than sixty-five million years until one was found off the coast of South Africa in 1938.

“I'd hate to meet one of those in the pond,” Tad said.

It was huge and hideously ugly. “It reminds me of my mud puppy,” Taylor told him. “I made this papier-mâché mud puppy for my class's unit on amphibians. Have you ever seen a mud puppy?”

Tad shook his head.

“Me neither, but I'd like to someday. Oh, look at this,” she said, moving on to the next photograph. “This guy is cute.”

A furry critter with a pink nose and big eyes clung to a stem of bamboo. He was described as a Monito del Monte, a small marsupial believed to have been extinct for eleven million years until one was discovered in a thicket of bamboo somewhere in Chile.

Taylor peered at her reflection in the glass. What was that on her chin? Pizza sauce? Why hadn't somebody told her she had food on her face? She turned away and wiped it off, hot with embarrassment.

When she looked at Tad again, he was staring at her bare feet. Why? She put one behind the other, trying to hide them. But it didn't work. She just ended up walking backward.

“I like that shiny pink stuff on your toes,” Tad said.

Taylor felt her feet blush, and she put her shoes back on.

“Look!” Tad cried.

She followed to where he was pointing. It was one of the photographs at the end of the near-extinct species exhibit. He was practically leaping toward it.

“What is it?” she asked, catching up with him. It looked like a shiny pale blue beetle magnified many times.
BLUE TOPAZ BEETLE
, the label said. Taylor read aloud. “‘Sometimes referred to as “the jewel of all beetles,” the blue topaz beetle is considered one of the rarest insects in the world. Believed extinct for thousands of years, a small colony of fewer than thirty individuals was found living in rotting wood near a small pond in Minnesota.'”

“There are some where I live,” Tad said.

“And where is that?” the lady coming up behind them asked.

“By Tumbledown, near the pond, in a field with flowers.”

Taylor felt a surge of homesickness so great that she crossed her arms over her stomach. He could be describing
her
home.

“I live in a place just like that,” she said. “There's beautiful woods and grassy hills and the nicest pond. And an old tumbledown shed. And the terrible thing is that they're going to tear it all up and drain the pond!”

The lady sighed. “And that's exactly why the blue topaz beetle is almost extinct. We're destroying their habitat.”

“But I know where there are some more!” Tad insisted. “Truly!”

The lady handed him one of the postcards with the blue topaz beetle on its front. “Many beetles look similar to each other,” she said. “It's very unlikely you've seen the particular blue topaz beetle. But if you think you really have, there's contact information on the card for reporting sightings. Lots of environmentalists would get
very excited
if you found some more.”

Tad put the card in his T-shirt pocket.

As the lady walked away, Taylor studied the beetle. “It honestly does look kind of like a precious jewel,” she said.

Wasn't it odd that the way he'd described his home made it sound just like hers?

TAD WAITED ON A BENCH. The bench was beside a bush with soft tendrils of white flowers that smelled nice. He twisted them into a garland, remembering how he and Buuurk had made garlands for Anora and Shyly.

With his human hands he was making a very big garland. If Anora and Shyly were here this very minute, he would be able to hold both of them in his open hand.

The human world was too big. Too complicated. He didn't know how to use the picture of the beetle to talk to the people who would want to know where the beetle lived. Anyway, he was pretty sure his Queen of the Hop could tell them exactly where the blue topaz beetles were if she'd just look.

He wanted to be a toad again. To feel the mud of the pond under his belly. To cram a night crawler into his mouth. To zot
low-flying moths in the moonlight.

He thought he knew how to become a toad again. And he had to trust Seer's prophecy that if he kissed the Queen of the Hop, Tumbledown would be saved. Maybe, since she had kissed him first, Toadville was already safe. But he planned to kiss her back, just to be sure. And once he became a toad again, he thought he knew how to get home—if he was right and this girl lived near Toadville-by-Tumbledown.

Eventually, he heard the rock-and-roll music start up. He followed it to where he found lots of humans dancing and eating. It made him sick with longing for the feasts at Tumbledown. Night-smacky-goo. Slug antennae. Shyly shaking pea pods.

He hoped the toads were still there. That he wasn't too late.

A human touched his arm. “Are you registered?”

He just wanted to dance with the Queen of the Hop.

“If you're registered, you should have a name tag,” she said.

“Hey,
there
you are!”

It was the queen. She grabbed his hand, and a current shot straight through him and made his freckles pop.

“He's with me,” the Queen of the Hop told the name tag human.

“You look really pretty,” Tad said. “This is for you.” He hung the garland over her head.

“Oh!” she said. “It's beautiful.”

The band broke into “Peggy Sue,” and her crown blazed in the light as he took her hand.

Taylor stepped and twirled, taking her lead from Tad. It was almost as if they'd danced together before. He swung her arms and did a fancy bouncing step that she tried to follow.

Her dad worked the drums. Taylor's crown tumbled off, and somebody picked it up and set it on a table.

When the song ended, everybody applauded everybody else. Taylor waved at her parents. They laughed and waved back. Somebody handed her the crown, which she put back on her head.

“Here,” Tad said straightening it. Then he turned pink under his freckles.

She led Tad over to the tables. “Are you hungry or thirsty?” she asked.

“Thirsty,” he said, picking up a bottle of water and pouring it over his head. “Ahhhh,” he sighed. “That feels good.”

What an odd boy! Laughing, she dumped a bottle over her own head, hearing the bottle gurgle, and feeling the little slops of icy wetness on her hot, sweaty scalp. It ran behind her ears and down her neck and into her clothes, and felt really, really good. “Whee!” she said, throwing her arms up. She'd never said
whee
before.

The boy took her hand and led her toward the door. “Let's go look for your toad. Where did you last see him?”

Taylor glanced over her shoulder and caught her mother's eye, then made walking motions with her fingers and pointed to Tad. Her mother nodded.

“You know. Backstage where the dance competition was this afternoon.”

As they rode the elevator up to the seventh floor, a man looked at them for a long minute, and then turned to stare politely at the panel of numbers. Taylor didn't care. Being soaking wet and wearing a crown wasn't a bad thing. Actually, it was a really fun thing.

After they got off the elevator, Tad said, “When you get home, don't forget to look for the blue topaz beetles.”

“But I've never seen any before.” And she knew every inch of Mr. Dennis's old field.

“They like rotting wood,” he said. “Remember that.”

She nodded.

“So will you look again?”

“Okay,” she said, laughing.

“Promise?”

He was really interested in those beetles. “Promise.”

“Here,” he said, handing her the card with the picture of the blue topaz beetle on it. “Take this. You can talk to those people if you find the beetle.”

She put it in her skirt pocket. “Now can we look for my toad?”

“Sure,” he said.

In the room where the competition had been held, the lights were dim. “It's going to be hard to see,” she said. “Be careful not to step on him. He's very small. I wish we had a flashlight.”

“I could start over there,” the boy said, pointing to where some chairs were stacked, “and you could start over there, and we could meet in the middle.”

That was a good plan. In Taylor's corner, somebody had just shoved miscellaneous things into a pile. An empty backpack—which she searched because it could be a good hiding place. A cookie package with crumbs in the bottom. She peered carefully into the shadows where the wall met the floor. A tiny toad would blend in well there.

She and the boy were working their way toward each other. When they met in the middle, he said, “Anything?”

She shook her head. “Nothing.” She felt sad, but she also felt kind of tingly, like lightning was about to strike.

“I know he's here someplace.” The boy's face glowed. Taylor knew what he was going to do.

Kia had kissed a boy on a field trip and said it was mainly sticky.

Taylor shut her eyes. Kissing was like having goldfish flittering around in your tummy. Like stepping out of your skin and becoming something else. She felt the space around her changing.

When the kiss was over, she kept her eyes closed for a long time, just standing there. It hadn't been the least bit sticky like Kia said.

Had the boy liked it too? Had he kissed anybody before? She hoped he hadn't.

Finally, she opened her eyes.

Where had he gone? “Tad?” she called.

Maybe he was embarrassed. “I liked the kiss,” she announced loudly into the shadows. Probably she wasn't supposed to say that.

There was no answer.

It was kind of creepy being backstage in the almost-dark by herself. Why would he go off and leave her?

A little
breeping
came from the floor.

She bent down. Could it be?

It could. It was!

“I am so glad to see you!” she said. “You turned up just in time. We're leaving first thing in the morning. You almost missed your ride to my grandmother's garden.”

She felt such relief. She still had a few canned crickets. She could keep him alive until they got home.

“You're going to be so happy there!” she promised him.

He just looked at her, his eyes shining. His body was relaxed when she picked him up and slid him into her pocket.

On the way down to the room where the band was still playing, she looked everywhere for Tad but didn't find him. He couldn't just kiss her and then disappear like a rabbit in a magic act.

She ate some fruit salad and let a little girl wear her crown for a while. Tad had to come back so she could tell him the excellent news about her toad.

But she couldn't find him anywhere.

That night when she was undressing to get ready for bed, she took the card with the beetle on it out of her pocket and zipped it carefully into a compartment of her backpack. The flowers in the garland Tad had given her were starting to turn a little bit brown around the edges, but she didn't want to throw them away. She folded the garland gently and slid it into her backpack too.